Expo and Travels

This weekend was quite a busy one! I racked up a pretty big amount of miles on the trains, that's for sure. Friday night, I went out to an arcade in Kabuki-cho near Shinjuku Station. My Korean friend Su-hon brought me there, so it wasn't my thing to go to that part of town, we just ended up there. Oh well, we played some gameage and of course had a Yakuza or someone trying to get us to go into some sex place, but of course we refused and just kept moving. Saturday, I went with a couple friends to Makuhari Messe Convention Center, which is in southwestern Chiba City. We attended Japan's arcade expo there, and it rocked! My next post should have a picture gallery up of those pictures. We played all sorts of games and such that aren't out yet. All of Japan's insane crane and ufo-catcher games were free there. We played some team Half-Life 2 Arcade, which was interesting. I also was undefeated in Virtua Fighter 5, which was amazing, considering I was surrounded by Japanese... some of them being Otaku. Afterward, one friend and I took like 3 different trains throughout Chiba Prefecture, trying to get to my friend's house in Yachiyo. It was crazy, but we finally got there and played some Naruto on his Gamecube, then raided an arcade there. Afterward, I started panicking and caught the local train at 10:50pm, afraid I'd miss my train home. I ended up on the LAST one once I got on the Chuo Line in Ochanomizu. It was exactly a 2-hour train trip from his place in Yachiyo to Nishi-Kokubunji.

You'd think I'd be "trained" out by then, but I went and met up with another group of friends up in rural Saitama Prefecture north of Tokyo on Sunday. We played some Smash Brothers, MarioKart Double Dash, and a Pac-Man multiplayer game for a bit on the Gamecube. They went somewhere else, but I had to make my 2-hour or more trip back home so I could do homework and clean up and such around my place. I put some hours on those trains. It's a good thing I have a sweet metrocard that allows me to come from anywhere on the minimum fare, hehehe. The trip from Yachiyo should've cost me about Y2000, but it was only Y200. Hahaha. I have to go renew the card this week as well.

As far as plans for this week... Tomorrow, my Korean friend that lives just a couple stops away on the Chuo is meeting me after class for some pizza at Shakey's near here. The rest of the week is basic, until Saturday when we pull out for Aizu-Wakamatsu for the overnight trip into the mountains. That should be quite an experience, I think, and I'll take lots of pictures and probably have stories to tell. Unfortunately, though I technically was out and about all weekend, there's not much to tell, except that it all involved riding on trains, eating Japanese fast food(well... we also went to Wendy's once in Ikebukuro), and playing lots of games. I did rather enjoy playing the heck out of the taiko drum game with the DragonQuest VIII music on it. I think I may hit up the arcade for that game 'till I master those songs, hahaha. I'm going to go nuts if I go back to Baton Rouge to finish school and there aren't any arcades anywhere for me to go to... I don't remember any but the little Japanese one in the Mall of Louisiana, but it was quite small..

I'm starting to really tear up kanji in my studies. I suddenly have a love for them for some reason and want to know as many as possible. Maybe I'll even study Chinese one day just because their language is nothing but. Who knows... Anyway, I'm up to like, 600 or 700, I dunno. I have a long way to go though. I know a lot of characters, but some I may not know every reading and word they go in, so sometimes I'll see a sign and know the characters and can probably figure out what it means, but maybe don't know how to say it.. or the opposite sometimes. Well, I'm gonna go now so I can study more! I have lots of vocabulary that is hurting me for not knowing it, so I better get to it!

Warm Weather... For a Day

As the title suggests, today the weather was actually *almost* warm... but it will only last one day. We'll be back to the usual coldness tomorrow. It's a little bit colder where I am because though I live in Tokyo, I'm in the Tama area, rather than the central 23-ward area, so I'm up there getting away from the ocean and into the mountains. BIG NEWS people.. if you look over to the right in my "links" section, you'll see the "Picture Gallery" link, so all the ones I've uploaded to my friend's server are there for you to check out. At the moment, there aren't any new photos there. I'll probably toss up a couple of random shots from life up here on the blog from time to time of course. Speaking of photos.. one thing odd that sucks in this country is that you can usually NOT take photos if you're in a place. It's forbidden in most places like stores or arcades or whatnot. Oh well, just gotta use the spy skillz. I had my horrendously long midterm today from 1:30 to FIVE, but I survived. I couldn't believe the retarded couple of kanji I messed up on it though, my GOD... I know I screwed up the one for "warm, but not warm air" and I got the ones for "park(recreational)" and "wide; spacious" mixed up like a freakin' idiot. If you know Chinese or Japanese, you'd see why I did that. Oh well.. such is life sometimes. I just know so many that well they get jumbled.. hahaha. I do know a boatload.. but I have many more to go, sadly. I like kanji though.

School is kind of a pain in the (insert body part here) this week, but eventful. We just had this test, and now tomorrow I get to meet some of the people in the US Program way the heck up north of Ueno(a northeastern part of Tokyo) BY 7:45am to visit a sumo beya. That's freakin' cool, but um..... that's going to be like a 1.5 or 2 hour trip possibly.. I dunno. Anyone who's made the trip, let me know in the comments. I'm riding the Chuo-sen from my place out here in Nishi-Kokubunji, which is relatively close to Tachikawa, then switching to the Yamanote-sen in Shinjuku and riding it around the northern half of the loop to juuust before Ueno. After that, I get to go back to Shinjuku for morning class, and then after lunch go to normal class with my most boring teacher for a good 3.5 hours. Saturday, I have a morning culture class that talks about the place we're spending the weekend at next weekend. It's just one of those weekends, I suppose.

My friend Mike has a birthday party on Saturday at a MASSIVE club in Shibuya, but I'm torn because I really really want to go to this amusement/games expo in Makuhari that day. I'm still not sure what to do. I gotta be kinda cheap as the money well isn't flowin' like it used to, lol. I want to have enough money left over for the end of the trip so that I can do some fun things while hangin' out with Mark before I leave. I also obviously am still planning to go to Kamakura. I guess whenever I get cabin fever, I'll hop the train one stop over to the bigger station in town and hit the cheap(ish) arcade for a bit and stomp some Japanese tail at some fighting games(I actually hung in there the other day, unbelievably. I had the guy whipin' the sweat from his brow, haha).

Alright, that's it for tonight I suppose, 'cause I have to wake up so early. See you folks later!

Regular Posting

Howdy folks! Okay, I will no longer ONLY post when I have a massive batch of pictures to put up. I'll just keep filling everyone in on my daily stuffs going on here. Today is an EXTREMELY boring day, but it's also kinda nice. I slept probably half the day and am just listening to some Dave Matthews Band, listening to the crazy wind blow by my window, and surfin' the web while drinkin' some apple tea. I'll probably study in a bit, since this week is full of difficult tests in school and well... I might as well do something with my time worthwhile.

Last week was normal until... Thursday night I got a hellacious fever when I laid down to bed. It kept me up all night with bad chills, cramps, and even like some convulsions. I got up feeling just really sore and tired on Friday, so I took some Advil and went to class. I slowly got around, but halfway through class I felt it again. The teacher was like, 顔がとても赤くなりましたよ！大丈夫ですか？ (Wow, your face is really turning red! Are you alright?!) I took a walk for the break in the middle of class and took more medicine. I felt "okay" after that... enough to make it to my "date" or really just friendly dinner with a Korean girl from class, but afterward I had to dodge a tea/coffee invitation so I could get home, 'cause as soon as I got on the train, I thought I was going to die. I made it on the train, but after I got to my station, I really really should've taken a cab, but walked the whole like 25 min. trek down the hilly road (I'm not far from the mountains) to my building, and probably could've cried with happiness upon getting to my room. Anyway, this all made it probably the best/worst day in Japan, 'cause the Korean girl, named Kan Jon-Son, was really nice and we'll hang out a little more later since she promised some Korean food, but I was so extremely sick that it balanced the day out.

Anyhow, that night was terrible with me laying in bed from about 8:30, falling asleep about 1ish, and then I woke up at... 10 or 11 Saturday. I felt sooooooo much better. All is well now. I ended up going to the XBox Cafe with some friends in my building over in Kita-Aoyama, and we walked through Harajuku(fashion hipster area) and Omotesando(another fashion place). I noticed when we were in these areas that it felt like I was in an American or European city with all the ENGLISH on everything instead of Japanese, and the Western-looking (non-Asian anyway) people everywhere. I figured they put the Japanese flags all down the street not only for the national holiday but to remind you that it is indeed Japan. Maybe that's why the XBox Cafe was in this area as well, because Japanese in general don't care for American video games. I didn't realize that the area we were in wasn't terribly far from Roppongi and Azabu-Juban, which are VERY foreign. Oh well, you learn something new everyday I suppose. I live out here in the hillz with the Japanese family types, so I don't EVER see non-Japanese except for the handful of Americans and Canadians that live on my floor in this building. It's nice actually, 'cause it's quiet here. Being in Shinjuku everyday can wear on you, but returning to the quiet of Kokubunji (meaning "country temple") is not bad. It still is rather inconvenient. It does keep me sometimes from going somewhere, I think mainly because I'm not close to the train station and so I'm just like.... naaaaaaah, I don't really want to walk a mile or two just to go to some store or whatnot. HOWEVER.. because of the massive massive walking/jogging I do here and the obvious diet difference, I've lost like 25 pounds already. My pants don't fit and I need to go buy a belt somewhat fiercely. New diet plan for all people who want to lose weight... move to Japan! Hahaha.

For you people reading this that are into games/technology/other nerdy stuff, yes I have bought some Japanese manga and have been enjoying it, mainly for the purpose of helping my lowsy reading skills. Books are insanely cheap here at sometimes less than a dollar, but CDs and related media are about double the American price sometimes. I got a *cheap* $33 CD here a few weeks ago... If you really are a geek like me, then you owe yourself a trip to the Akihabara area of Tokyo before you die. It is the holy temple of all that is geeky. It's like a whole city of games, manga, computers, robots, anime... ... and of course there are these maid-girls and anime-costumed girls everywhere in the street that are pretty freakin' easy to look at (in a very normal, mature and innocent way.. at least for me, maybe not for most of the guys there), which call you ご主人様, or Master/My Lord, in Japanese and serve you food and whatnot. There are also usually girl bands performing music on the side of the street that are pretty good actually. I've been there... 4 times thus far I think. I went there to buy this laptop, I went there to help a friend look for a job, went there to waste time at a camera store while waiting to meet up with someone, and I can't remember the other reason, oh yeah, to shop for this laptop but I didn't buy it the first time I saw it.

There are certainly other interesting places in Tokyo, but that one was on my mind at the moment and so I typed it. If you're into fashion and such, you can probably go anywhere here, but the places that will destroy your bank account with all the big Western names are probably Ginza, Omotesando, and the area near Shinjuku Station. Shinjuku Station is THE largest and busiest train station in the world, with something like maybe... I dunno almost 30 train platforms (I don't know if that counts the subways too or what), around 70-something exits, and I think I've seen FIVE shopping malls in it. Millions of people go through this place just in one of the rush hours alone. It's quite a zoo sometimes. I actually hate the place, but there IS the only Mexican restaurant I've seen so far in Japan near there just outside the South Exit by the Odakyu Department Store. I don't know what my favorite part of the Tokyo area is yet. I felt at home in Tsukiji because we were at a fish market on Tokyo Bay, and I felt like I was back in New Orleans or something, with that fish smell, the water running out of the river right there with big buildings all around it, and fishing ships... I'm told Shinjuku Gyoen (the city's largest park) is awesome, but I walk a block from it every day and haven't been. It's so cold that I usually don't feel like sitting or walking through a park and just want to go inside.

Right now, I've got 2 trips planned out with the school and one I'm setting up on my own. One trip is with my classmates that are the Chinese and Koreans, and it is to some big farm in Chiba Prefecture. They say it's beautiful and there are lots of animals(though if you know me, this is no attraction or anything at all new to me, lol), and then some rides like go-karts, a big ferris wheel, etc. The US Program students in a couple weeks are taking a trip up to Aizu-Wakamatsu in Fukushima Prefecture, which is to the north and in the mountains. We're staying at a traditional inn where there's an onsen and other such olde skool Japanese cultural things to check out. My independent outing I'm getting people to go on, is out to Kamakura, which is southwest of Yokohama and Yokosuka, on the Pacific Ocean. It's an oooold samurai town that is supposed to be beautiful and a huge tourist attraction. It's on the beach and has lots of shops and restaurants, and of course castles, temples, and the Daibutsu(big buddha). I'm definitely going there next month.

Well folkses, I guess I'd better stop typing for the moment and get back to doing some studying. I hear my neighbors moving around, so we'll probably head out for some dinner soon, since there's no cafeteria food on Sundays. See ya'll later!